


Hollow

by zinke



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Songfic (Sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-11
Updated: 2007-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinke/pseuds/zinke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without a doubt, he had needed Rose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> It's gone and happened again – alternate fandom songfic. Or I could just say that this is a companion piece to Ashes of Time which canalso be found here at AO3. Yes, that sounds much better, doesn't it? The lyrics used are taken from _Goodbye My Lover_ , which is both written and performed by James Blunt. Thanks as always to caz963, without whom I'd still be lost in a sea of temporal and grammatical tense confusion. Wibbly-wobbly, indeed.

_I am a dreamer but when I wake,  
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take._

 

Shoulders hunched forward and coat tails flared out behind him, he sits cross-legged on the floor and contemplates the blank space confronting him. North, West, East – looming white walls are all that he can see, glowing a soft pearlescent blue in the dwindling light. For once he's landed precisely when and where he'd intended, so there's no hurry. It'll be months yet before the searches for survivors and answers are called off completely, and while this particular room has been examined on more than one occasion over the past few weeks he knows they'll be back – and rightfully so. This is after all where everything started – where everything ended.

And so he sits in the deathly stillness, seeking solace from the remorse and self-loathing his brief encounter with Donna Noble has reawakened. Rationally, it is a comfort he knows he will not find, its source irrevocably trapped in a place he cannot reach – but it doesn't stop him from trying, from reaching out with his beleaguered senses for some sign or residual hint of Rose's presence.

Had he loved her? Humans, along with a great many other species, hold such a romantic notion of love when in fact the reality is rather dull and altogether different. The release of particular organic chemicals into the bloodstream, triggering a response meant to spur the body to satisfy its most basic needs – to eat, to drink, to perpetuate survival of self and species. Denying such impulses would be akin to suicide, which is why it comes as no surprise to him that, with the evolution of language, many of these same species have come to utilize such words as hunger, thirst and want to describe these feelings whose power rivals that of those most primal instincts. When all is said and done love, like so many of the body's other biological imperatives, can be boiled down to nothing more than a form of need.

Without a doubt, he had needed Rose.

 

 _And as you move on, remember me,  
Remember us and all we used to be_

 

Time had thrown her into his path at a time when he hadn't been particularly inclined to stop for obstacles; he had been constantly in motion, never looking back or ahead and always, always alone. Despite the sting of each life-sustaining breath in his chest, he'd been able to convince himself that he was one step ahead of the guilt and fury that had become his latest companion. Unable to come up with a sounder solution, he had simply continued to flounder through time and space solving problems, saving lives, searching for absolution. He never would have guessed that he'd find it in the basement of a shop in early 21st century London.

He'd offered Rose his hand and she'd taken it without question that first time – and every time thereafter. Of course, she'd challenged him in every other possible way each day afterward, but he'd been surprised to find he hadn't really minded. She'd looked at the universe – and at him – with unspoiled eyes, and in doing so had shown him that there were still wonders to behold and adventures to be had, even for someone as damned as himself. Somehow a mere human girl of only twenty years had quietly filled the spaces in his soul that had been carved out by war, death and his own unspeakable acts and given him a chance to heal.

 

 _And I still hold your hand in mine.  
In mine when I'm asleep._

 

It wasn't until after the events on The Game Station that he'd felt it – a tiny, buzzing presence buried deep within his mind – and had begun to understand just how deeply she had insinuated herself into his life. At the time he hadn't been able to reason out the whys and wherefores of it; the confusion of his regeneration, along with the added distractions of swordplay and satsumas had been quite enough to keep even his rather impressive mind occupied. But in the days following, as they all took the time to regroup and recover, he'd noticed it – the lightest of touches across the edge of his consciousness, full of warm wonder and grace and wholly unmistakable. At the time, he'd simply assumed it to be an after-effect of Rose's absorption of the Time Vortex, something unexpected but not in the least bit problematic. Well, perhaps a bit problematic, but nothing a little time wouldn't take care of. Or so he'd thought. But as the days and months continued and the feeling only seemed to strengthen, he began to suspect that the source was something altogether different and potentially problematic in every possible way.

Each winter of its adult life, the Earth's Emperor Penguin will make a ninety kilometre journey across the harsh frozen terrain of Antarctica to the ancestral breeding ground of its species. Every 3rd lunar cycle, the Herd of the Jinmaal will take to the air, rising through the unforgiving wind and cold of the upper stratosphere where they will spend the next three weeks feeding off the unfiltered radiation from a nearby dwarf star. No matter how dangerous, hated or far away, home is the place to which everyone can return, sure of feeling welcomed and cared for – no matter what Thomas Wolfe might have written.

But not for him. Until Rose.

He supposes that may have been why, with each visit to the Powell Estate – particularly after his regeneration – his protests became less vehement and more a matter of keeping up appearances. Despite Jackie's endless nattering and complaining and Mickey's thinly veiled looks of disdain, their infrequent arrivals there had come to feel as close to coming home as he was ever likely to get, the people there as close to family as he would ever have again – or be willing to tolerate, for that matter.

Despite his best efforts to keep her – all of her – at arm's length, he'd no longer known how to be without her. He still doesn't, even now. With the closing of the breach, her comforting presence had abruptly vanished, leaving him once again empty and alone, tearing open wounds he'd foolishly believed healed. And while he still feels the turn of this planet beneath his feet, the sighing of the universe around him – the familiar background noise to his day to day existence – now there is a deafening silence where Rose had come to be.

It's only now, so many weeks later that he's able to admit to himself that it feels as if he's lost everyone and everything, all over again.

 

 _And I will bear my soul in time,  
When I'm kneeling at your feet._

 

He craves the contact, desperately needing reassurance that in spite of his many recent failures, there is still someone somewhere who knows his hearts and who trusts in him – even when he cannot bring himself to do the same. If he concentrates hard enough, focuses his energies just a little more sharply, he can almost convince himself that he can feel her with him again – diaphanous, golden tendrils of warmth whispering against his aching soul.

But for now, the illusion will have to be enough, because as much as he may wish it were different, there is nothing left here but the echoing whiteness, and he's run out of time. They'll be coming back any moment now and he can't linger here any longer without risking being found. Rising stiffly from his crouch upon the floor, he regards the wall before him, now deep in shadow, as if trying to commit its textured surface to memory. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he turns on his heel to make his way towards the TARDIS, standing sentry at the far end of the room.

Beyond it, underlying his ghostly reflection in the glass he can see the winking lights from several office buildings just across the Thames, filtered through the gently falling snow – real snow this year, the difference between a little atmospheric excitation and great big alien spaceship annihilation. He only wishes that he had someone to help him see the beauty of the distinction.

 _I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.  
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow._

 

*fin.*


End file.
